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Michael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Advisory Board Co-Chair of the Asia Global Institute in Hong Kong, and Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on New Growth Models. He was the chairman of the independent Commission on Growth and Development, an international body that from 2006-2010 analyzed opportunities for global economic growth, and is the author of The Next Convergence – The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World.

Failed essay. Sad! Republicans can't deliver any of the authors' recommendation because they don't believe in government helping people out via retraining for instance. Nor do they believe in much higher deficit spending as the authors' recommend for a so called pro-growth agenda. So why are these two super credentialed professors making recommendations they know won't be implemented?

Trump didn't promise anybody anything. He does not deliver anything to anybody other than himself. He is enjoying himself immensely at the expense of everyone else. If you are not enjoying your life, too bad, he will just step over your body with more thoughtless words.

Campaign promises are just luring lights for stray insects. So look from above, away from the trench.

If Trump main campaign promises start to fail as the Obamacare repeal and the immigration restrictions due to legislative and judiciary obstacles, he will be forced to resort to war and let the middle and low classes decide until when they will tolerate simmering.

Actually, the most distorted markets in the US are capital markets, thanks to FED support for asset prices and the government's favorable tax treatment of capital gains and other capital income. The result has been massive capital inflows over the period of a generation, a consistently over-valued exchange rate and non-competitive goods and services. Adjustment should start there. Monetary policy should not only do less, as Spence and Brady suggest; it should do the opposite of what it has done for the past 35 years, and now use its bond portfolio, in particular, and interest rate policies (secondarily) to restrain asset prices.

Will that help the middle class? That depends on which end of the middle class one looks at. Those dependent on earned income will do better; those older, richer and more dependent on capital income will do worse. But that's just adjustment, and creative destruction at work on a very personal level.

You have to define the catchall of reeducation or reskilling to make any sense

The cost of a high level of education or reskilling is very significant and quite simply it is not going to happen at the necessary level. You will be left with short courses or bit qualifications

Redeployment of highly trained and educated workers because their job has been sent overseas never to return simply is not going to happen in a wide enough implementation so voter agitation will continue

Take the training or reskilling plan away and you do not have a lot left. Additionally employers like fresh fruit and there is a steady stream delivered to the marketplace - further stubborn youth unemployment implies other problems of refreshed workers

No explanation of how such an endowment will be extracted or qualified for, further the question is just how much is needed to make any difference or even if it is potentially available. The asymmetry present is a problem

I think the authors are guilty of some wishful thinking here, and a good measure of denial.

As long as the fundamental objective of our country is the maximization of return on assets, we are doomed to more of the same -- regardless of what fantasies someone like Donald Trump may flog to the disillusioned.

The goal of a secure and meaningful life for every person is simply incompatible with the goal of maximizing ROA at an individual, national or global level.

If we insist of continuing to define a secure and meaningful life entirely in economic terms, then the one solution to the existing (and growing) global surplus of labor is the one that the author's refuse to contemplate: a massive reduction in the human population similar to the one that the plagues brought to Europe in the 14th century, or that the two world wars brought in the 20th.

An interesting set policies very rational very valid. Also not going to happen. The people who are the beneficiaries of this system have no interest changing the system and since they own the politicians outright change isn't going to happen. Since the politicians are also doing well out of the current setup why would they do more then give speeches about changing. The corruption is blatant and outright. Does the name George Osbourne ring any bells. Does anyone believe Blackrock is paying him 600,000 pounds a year to work one day a week because he is the brilliant or to pay him off for his services while in office??? In the end Professor as I think you know Professor nothing will change because the people who OWN and RUN the system DO NOT CARE, Peons are easily to replace after all.

Good article from the authors. Trump and his team and unless they get their act together fast by eliminating those regulations that are hindering any job prospects and growth in the economy they will find themselves out of time and out of office to the joy of the many. BO built many walls and obstacles that must be demolished and at the same time savings from cost cutting exercises must be directed first and foremost at promoting partnerships between the private (primarily the SMEs' ) and the public sector, at the local, regional and federal levels. Large corporations or institutions that have amassed fortunes during the last decade or so and contributed by default rather than by design in the inequality in societies and in the shrinking of the middle class must be forced to invest heavily in local SMEs with specific targets to meet and specific timeframe and heavy penalties (in the form of direct or indirect taxation) imposed on them if they fail for whatever reason in meeting these targets. The required legislations must be passed to facilitate this reallocation of capital. Investing in training or compliance work is useful but not enough, college fees must be brought down to acceptable levels and admissions opened to everyone without any pre- determined selection criteria. Incidentally, all selection criterion for acceptance, the awarding of work, contracts, etc...must be abolished or revamped to make them fully transparent and fair thereby eliminating any bias in their awarding. The U.K. Is a totally different case, with all energy being directed towards Brexit, there shall be no resources to deal with the UK economy for the foreseeable future.